Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Florida media quiet about SACS’ validation of NCCU-New Birth degrees

One week has come and gone since the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed its seal of authenticity on all the degrees awarded by a North Carolina Central University satellite campus in Lithonia, Ga. Yet, you wouldn’t know it by reading or watching the news in Florida.

The St. Petersburg Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), and WCTV-6 (Tallahassee) all carried the original story concerning questions raised about whether the degrees were properly accredited. But now that those questions have been answered, none of those media organizations has said a word.

The NCCU satellite campus opened in fall 2004 at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta. NCCU administrators shut down the program this year after discovering that it had not received approval from the university’s Board of Trustees, the University of North Carolina system or SACS.

FAMU President James Ammons, NCCU’s top executive when the campus was established, received an onslaught of negative publicity. However, Florida’s newspapers and television stations quickly lost interest in the issue once SACS confirmed that the campus did not violate accreditation guidelines.

This raises the question: Would the Florida media have remained silent if SACS ruled that the degrees were invalid?

The omission is particularly noticeable in the St. Petersburg Times, which had a field day when the story broke. Reporter Ron Matus wrote eight blog posts and a full-length news article about the matter, all suggesting that Ammons was in hot water. But once the issue took a turn for the better, Matus decided to ignore a basic lesson from Journalism 101: continue updating the public about a developing story.

It seems that Matus isn’t anxious to inform his newspaper’s readers that there was actually a positive outcome to the accreditation controversy. He’d rather just pretend like nothing even happened.

UPDATE: At 2:54 PM today, Ron Matus and Jeff Solocheck of The St. Petersburg Times' Gradebook blog both acknowledged RN's constructive criticism and updated their NCCU-New Birth coverage. Their blog post can be found here.

15 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Ok. So the news organizations didn't say -- and haven't said -- anything regarding the resolution of the NCCU-New Birth degrees. Let us move on to more pressing issues. When folks get to digging, all kinds of new sh*t pop up in the crevices. I say let us leave well enough alone.

Stir **it, my a$$!! These clown media outlets NEED to be pulled up and outed for the racist that they are!! In 2007, why is it that the $548,427.89 in missing UF/Jax CARD and FDLRS funds, or when FSU misappropriated state funds to enclose the steel girders of Doak Campbell stadium with a brick facade, never made blazing headlines?

They actually did violate the SACS guidelines. What SACS has said is that the courses that the students took actually were as rigorous as the ones taken on NCCU's campus. This gives NCCU a good chance at resolving the problem.

Rattler Nation you have got ALOT of balls! When it was first exposed, you removed all comments in regards to exposing the issue from this site. Now that it is semi-resolved (financial aid repayment) with Dr. Ammons giving a half-ass apology; knowing he knew what he left behind with the stab in the back of a close friend, Bishop Long. Now you want to make a "victory" statement. Typical KOOL-AID drinker... Let's just hope you are not mistreated by the likes of them and you want to be heard.

FY: Rattler Nation is, and always have been an independent blog belonging only to its blogger. That said, he/she has the right to do with his/her blog as they wish- including adding/deleting/altering comments posted. In turn, YOU, said poster, are free NOT to post on, or read said blog. If you are unhappy with the management of said blog, please feel free to create your own. That's free, too!

Thank God we have the Rattler Nation Blog to tell it like it is. The Tallahassee Democrat, St. Petersburg Times, and a few others are racist and provide piss poor coverage of FAMU. I'd hate to imagine how uninformed we would be if we didn't have Rattler Nation.

I must share that at one time the RN was up to date on current issues at FAMU, gut now it seems to have moved away from the FAMU issues/concerns and on to local/state/national news. Wonder if they know about some of the additional issues/concerns that are rather serious at FAMu these days?

Charlie Nelms= Puppet lets see if he does what Ammons did in his six years at NCCU a damn school that was on verge of many other HBCU's, closing! Now, having said that I am not blinded to the fact that Ammons is human, but having said that a white college football coach said it best when talking about winning in D-1A football. He said 9 out of the 10 teams cheat and the 1 that doesnt loses! So what! Ammons supposedly "cheated" and trust and know that he may have. It netted the school over a million dollars in donations from one donor who happens to lead the church where the school was located and who happened to sit on the BOT!!!!

Nelms seems to be okay at running day-to-day operations but he definitely isn't on Ammons' level as a visionary.

Case-in-point: Ammons is dedicated to bringing National Achievement Scholars back to HBCUs. Where is Nelms' vigor for recruiting? He seems to just be satisfied with meeting the minimum recruitment standards set by UNC officials.

Let Them Know How We Get Down: Anytime. Anyplace.

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